Harmony Hill Cheese Factory Feud
While "tongue in cheek" in nature, the following is really quite close to how "cheese factory politics" actually transpired.
When this writer was a boy in the early 1900's, he lived on the lower end of Irish Ridge in Crawford County, Wisconsin. This area was ironically named Harmony Hill.
Just as some neighborhoods have a central feature such as a store or church to mold the community, Harmony Hill had its cheese factory which to no ones surprise was called the Harmony Hill Cheese Factory and it was located at a T intersection just across
the road from Joe Yanna's farm. Joe had been a cheesemaker there at the crossroads earlier but had found farming preferable to cheesemaking so he bought out the Boyd's farm. Whether or not this was a wise move on Mr. Yannas part is a moot question.
We must say that the Harmony Hill Cheese Factory was strategically located, it offered a homey type of milk marketing and provided a source of whey as a pig liquid diet for the patrons and this was vitally important, but at the same time, the crux of the
problems that were to beset this agricultural establishment. To one not aquainted with the term "whey", we will make it simple by saying it's a by-product of the cheesemaking business, or in other words, it is what's left after you're done making cheese and it's in a liquid form that can be made liquidier depending on the amount of water the cheesemaker added.
Patrons brought their milk to the factory in ten gallon cans, the kind that could be heaved up into the weighing room by hand or the 30 gallon types that were hoisted up by a windlass. An interesting but sometimes serious side note was that on occasion one or both of the horses on the milkwagon team would be frightened by something and take off around the factory leaving in their wake dangling or spilled cans, rattling can covers, and a very upset milk hauling farmer.
Under normal circumstances however, a team would be more than glad to stand and rest a few minutes before being driven around the factory to the whey tank where the farmer would fill his cans with whey, which if you have forgotten the meaning of by this time, you may refer to paragraph three of this composition.
Lest you be misled, we must explain that if every milk hauler took his fair proportionate share of the whey; if Joe Yanna's cows didn't break out of their enclosures and drink up half the whey; or if the tank didn't spring a leak during the night; or the cheesemaker didn't water down the whey supply to assure equanimity of whey shares, then the farmer would get his fair share and peace would reign supreme on Harmony Hill. This agricultural utopia, however, seldom prevailed. One could rest assured that one or more of the negative conditions would occur and the irate farmer or his son or his hired man would be shorted. In such cases someone caught hell, either the other milk patrons or the cheesemaker, or Joe Yanna or his cows. Occasional fisticuffs were the order of the day if it appeared that another farmer was overwheyed or if Joe Yanna's cows broke out (on purpose). There was no question but that the supply of whey was the focal point of disagreement at the Harmony Hill Cheese Factory. To be sure there were other matters to be disputed; for example the cheesemaker could be suspected of shorting the weight of the farmer's milk or chiseling a bit on the butterfat percent, or of his partiality to certain farmers who may have had pretty, available, or marriageable daughters or may have tendered an unusual amount of invites to supper, to be sure there were numerous varieties of cheese factory discriminations but none took preference over the whey distribution.
These feuds were no day to day tenured affairs. Many lasted during an entire summer and would have continued into the winter if the dairy herds of Harmony Hill would have cooperated, but for the most part, the cows dried up during the winter months and this allowed a brief respite in the war of the whey.
In the long haul, the day had to come when the milk truck came into being. This was the coup de grace of the Harmony Hill Cheese Factory. The independent milk truck entrepreneur found he could improve his economic gains by hauling patron's milk to the
Marietta Cheese Factory, so he lured dairy farmer after dairy farmer on Harmony Hill to his milk hauling business and Harmony Hill Cheese Factory ceased to exist.
You may rightfully inquire as to the eventual existence. The building was converted to a hog house for Joe Yanna's pigs; the whey tank broke down under the weight, salt, water, and old age; as for the Harmony Hill whey feud, well it persevered; the only difference now was that the milk trucker became an active member of the Harmony Hill whey feuding society.
These thoughts, were scribbled on a pad of paper in the early 1950's. Dad, Neil Greene, would often let out a chuckle as he pursued his favorite hobby, recording his cherished boyhood years on Irish Ridge.
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